Apple Of My i
by baited with hypotheses
Summary: highschool!AU. For she was the pretty geek, he was the beastly beauty and the lines separating their colliding galaxies were never even sketched in her weathered white notebook. NAMIKU.
1. and mine, the distant sea

**Apple Of My i**

**i. **_and mine, the distant sea_

* * *

I had been watching him since the beginning of English. I assure you, though, that I wasn't – _that I'm not_ – staring. Just watching. Observing. Analyzing. _Anything that wasn't staring._ I watched how his silver hair hung on his shoulders, how his sea foam eyes glistened with emotions I do not recognize. I observed the way he laughed when he was with his friends (that were also popular), the way a small, annoyed smile would pull at his lips when someone professed their love for him, the way he would flash a tired grin at his friends at the end of the day when he just wanted to read in the library…

Yes, folks, Riku Nagakami reads after school. I often see him in the non-fiction area of the library when I go there after the dismissal bell has rung, his aquiline nose buried in some History or Science book. He thinks that he can hide his Riku-godliness by putting on a pair of oversized glasses, but he obviously can't. Some people, though, are just stupid enough to not notice him. Or maybe, I just notice him too much.

…No, I'm not a stalker. I'm not some hormone-driven teenager desperate to get laid, either. I'm…I don't even know what I am.

_But I'm not a stalker_. Just remember that.

* * *

"Miss Izumiko, who is your favorite poet?" I glanced up at our English teacher, Marluxia-sensei (whose sexuality I have doubted ever since he marched into the room, designer clutch in hand) asked. He was a huge fan of poetry, randomly quoting either Shakespeare or Frost or cummings or Pablo Neruda in every other sentence.

I opened my mouth to answer, but a certain flame-haired girl smugly told the whole class, "'_I am nobody, who are you?_' I believe it's Emily Dickinson."

Nobody in class got the joke except for a handful of people. Kairi Watanabe was one of those smart, gorgeous popular types. Yes, those people are rare to find. She wasn't mean, but she could be a little bit tempestuous from time to time.

Oh, her jokes sucked, as well.

But she'd been right about my favorite poet. Emily Dickinson. I'd fallen in love with her work ever since my parents bought me an anthology of all her poems for Christmas last year. I love all her poems equally, and I'd even bring that little book to bed.

Realizing that I was still standing with all of my classmates looking at me, I flushed. "Kairi was right. My favorite poet _is _Emily Dickinson."

Marluxia-sensei nodded eagerly, "I love her, too!"

….Maybe I was just hearing things but I could have sworn I heard him say 'girlfriend' at the end.

I took a small glance at Riku, who was smirking at no one in particular. Perhaps he enjoyed my embarrassment? I clutched my loyal Mongol # 2 pencil tighter, feeling its cylindrical shape mark itself into my skin.

Marluxia-sensei just continued droning on about how much he loved Emily Dickinson.

* * *

The library seemed quite silent today. I mean, it was usually quiet, but today…it just seemed dead. I plopped down on one of the red velvet sofas and started drawing. I let my hands take charge, and for a few minutes, I didn't think. The pencil lead possessed me and everything I was and everything I wasn't and just made me draw.

Anything. Everything. Nothing. Light. Darkness. People. World. Sadness. Hope. Dreams.

Anything and nothing that could have been drawn was sketched into my trusty white sketchbook. The sketchbook that was filled with wishes upon stars and far-away dreams that would never come true. _The sketchbook that was my life, my hope, my…everything._

And yet, this sketchbook meant nothing to me, sometimes, on days like these. On days when rain kept on falling and when reality came crashing back down, ripping my dreams from me and fragmenting them into little ions of oblivion.

This sketchbook meant nothing to me when I could just spend my days watching Riku, for he was the light – the candle – that never went out, even when we were nebulas away. I could see his silver aura from millions of light-years away, and he was the first person I would want to see when the End would come.

But of course, my sketchbook meant the world to me on days like these as well, for Riku was the land and I was buried deep, deep, deep, deep below – where no light can shine and where I cannot see him.

_Life._ It's too much of a paradox, sometimes.

* * *

"Hey," I looked up from my sketchbook only to bore my oceanic eyes into familiar sea-green ones. _Riku._ When did he get here? More importantly, when did the sun set?

"The library…It's about to close," he continued, gently, as if I was vulnerable and would break at the sound of his voice.

"Oh." _Oh?_ How lame. For the first time ever, the object of my affection has actually spoken to me and I say 'oh.' Great.

"I was trying to call your attention—" He looked for my name in his subconscious, "Namine, but you were so engrossed in your drawings I thought you'd be able to tear apart your sketchbook…"

"Well, anyway, I should be going. Goodbye," He muttered, before exiting. I just sat there like some idiotic statue, and was only able to regain control of my limbs after he had left.

"Wait!" I had wanted to say, but no words came out of my useless mouth. He had dropped a piece of paper - crumpled - on the floor: a love letter from Kairi. I reached out to get it, and read it silently.

_

* * *

_

___The moon is distant from the sea_

_And yet with amber hands_

_She leads him, docile as a boy,_

_Along appointed sands._


	2. let me not mar that perfect dream

**ii.** _let me not mar that perfect dream_

I didn't go to the library as often as I used to, anymore. Whenever the skies were ochre and peach, I was usually at the café near the school, sipping Caramel lattes and drawing poor excuses for sketches. I would chat a little with Roxas – my so-called 'best friend' who kept guffawing at the 'Riku Story' – who worked at DIA Café after school to pay for his tuition. Sometimes, Zexion, Axel and Olette would join and we'd all have a false sense of happiness – at least for a short while.

I guess you could say I was – _I am_ – a coward for hiding from Riku, but that little conversation (or lack of it) a few days ago made me realize that I was more than contented watching – _not_ stalking – him from afar. It was my paranoid little fantasy – for him and I to live 'happily ever after' – but I wasn't hopeful (or desperate enough) to make it real. I mean, I wouldn't go burning bridges and punching villains to get my fairy tale ending. (And truth be told, I'd really have to do those things just even to talk to Riku. He has clingy fangirls.) I still have some dignity left, you know.

…Well, at least I'm pretending to not lie about the dignity I never had.

* * *

"Hey, Namine!" Roxas greeted me, a cheerfully shy smile on his face, as I entered the quaint café. "The usual?" He asked, and I merely nodded. I then plopped myself on one of the couches in the back and pulled out my sketchbook.

The scent of paper and ink and caffeine was intoxicating. I could get lost in this pseudo-Wonderland of mine and I wouldn't even care if I didn't get out alive. I was possessed again – possessed by the spirit of nothingness – and that possession meant I would lose track of time.

"Here," Roxas told me – though his voice was slowing fading in my mind – as he handed me my latte. I think I mumbled a 'thanks,' but I couldn't be certain. Nothing ever was, in my Wonderland.

And so, I just kept on drinking and drawing; drowning out the voices of those around me. I was between and beyond everything in this world. I felt cold and warm and up and down and nothing and everything when I just continued drawing.

This was my dream; my long, perpetual phantasmagoria of nightmarish fragments. This was my life, _my everything_, my reality.

* * *

But, like every good nightmare, I was bound to wake up, sometime. The true reality came crashing back down, crushing all my false hopes and wishes. I found myself inside the café once more, with people of all shapes and sizes happily talking and drinking caffeinated drinks and binging on highly-sugared pastries.

I felt lost in this reality. I think I preferred my uncertain Wonderland.

"Namine!" Once more, I was face to face with a certain silver-haired golden boy I was trying to avoid. At that specific moment – my moment of loss – he entered Destiny Islands Academy Café with all his popular chumps and yet, he _chose to sit beside me. _

Sometimes, I wonder who is the watcher and who is the person being watched. Should I feel happy, or frightened?

My mind couldn't process these unfamiliar thoughts, so it chose 'frightened.' I tensed visibly, and sipped my drink with such…unNamine-ness…that I was almost certain that Roxas would come to me and slap me or something for conversing with popular people.

Apparently, this reality wasn't certain, as well. And this day was _so darn full of uncertainty_, for in a split second, all of Riku's popular friends sat slipped into the couches surrounding me, without any hesitation.

Honestly, was he that powerful that he could control everyone's minds and forcing them to sit with an unknown human being like me?


End file.
